MOO2 How do you like to customize your races? : Psilons

When I play MOO2, I like to play solo, One Human player vs only Computer Opponents. My favorite race is probably the Psilons. I like them solo, because I can take my time and don't have to rush anything. However, because it's MOO2, I can't help but customize them. My favorite Psilon build is too give them Limited Population growth because I'll get Cloning Centers fairly early in the game and usually I'll always give myself Omniscience because I like tracking everybody else and planning my expansion from the beginning of game and then I'll take away my Large Homeworld and save 2pts for my mutation so I can get Telepathic. I am pretty sure there are many others who like playing versus the computer and like the Psilons and also customize them, so the question is, how do you Psilon?

I once tried subterranean and lithovor - just because they were expensive choices and I wanted to see what could be done with them. Turns out to be a pretty damn powerful combination, regardless of what you have to lose to be able to afford it. Ever tried?

I rarely stick to a single custom race, and spice things up with a completely new race/playstyle each game.

If I wanted a Psilon-styled research race, I'd probably have to ask myself whether I was playing a thematic all-in kind of Research race, or one that was stronger in the early game, so as not to be steamrolled as often.

For the former, if there was any way to fit Democracy into the picks, you will have an extremely-quickly researching race, with a reasonable chance to half-build half-buy all of the buildings you will be researching. The biggest downside to this combination is your extremely poor spying ability; you will often find that your best technological discoveries are stolen rather quickly unless you spend a significant effort to counteract it.

Example build:

Creative (8)

Democracy (7)

+1 Research (3) [Maybe +10 Spying instead]

Low G Homeworld (-5)

-50 Growth (-4)

Large Homeworld (1)

The last two are based on your picks.

Alternatively, you can go for Unification instead of Democracy (Although, you're diverting further from the whole idea of Psilons at this point). It doesn't provide any direct research benefits, but the Food and Production bonus will help to keep you in the game against more aggressive opponents, and the +15 Spying Defence is a huge benefit to a research race. You can then tailor your picks around augmenting your strengths, offsetting the benefits you don't really need, depending on what you wanted to do. I like picking up Cybernetic, as it allows you to support colonies with minimal amounts of food (Hydroponic Farms + Auto Factories support 4 scientists on a Barren world), and the ship repair is significant on Star Bases in the early game (not to mention, you will often have the armour/shields to survive long enough to make it worthwhile). Rich Home World is a good value pick to take up your last couple of picks, and allows you to build really quickly and establish a foothold in the galaxy before the Sakkra/Silicoids simply steamroll you on larger maps.

As for negative traits? I don't typically like Repulsive, but you are the tech leader, so it's less of a bad pick from that standpoint. Trade and Research treaties are still overpowered against the AI, though.

Example build:

Creative (8)

Unification (6)

Cybernetic (4)

Rich Home World (2)

-10 Ground Combat (-2)

-50% Population Growth (-4)

-20 Ship Defence (-2)

-20 Ship Attack (-2)

I'm not a huge fan of the negative ship attack, but you can offset it with Computer and Battle Scanner technology. This also avoids the Low-Grav ability that some people dislike, although you could equally go for something like Low G, -20 Ship Defence, -10 Spying (+5 total spying bonus).

Have a play around, but I don't think Telepathy is a particularly good Psilon/Long-game Research race perk. It typically revolves around the early game, allowing you to take planets without needing to build transport ships, which is especially good before you have high-tier space communications technology, and exceeding your Command Point Limit is crippling to your economy. If you want something to combine it with, though; try a Feudal Government, and go to war as soon as you manage to build a Cruiser.

- 28 population Homeworld (Oceanic, Large Planet), 30 with Biospheres... Cloning Center is an absolute must with this race tho.

- Large population equals a large production, scientific research, and credit gain thru taxes on these populous colonies.

- Swamps are treated as Terrans, and Terrans/Oceans are treated as Gaia (Hence the huge population).

- Subterranean also takes care if most non Swamp/Ocean world giving an extra pop boost !

- Creative makes use of those science points realllly good. (My friend always take democracy + Science bonus and he only has slight advantage as my population is so much higher than him).

- Homeworld can support a lot of Non food-producing colonies in the event of a bad draw on the system quality at start location, although it severely taxes the ability to make science should it happen.

- If I capture a Huge Ocean Ultra-Rich with artifacts or other interesting bonuses (Like Orion), it makes it easy to FILL it with pop in a turn or 2 with freighter fleets.

- You need insane amount of spies to ensure you don't get robbed by everybody else in the galaxy. I usually have a Toxic Rich planet make these for me on auto-repeat until full.

- Low-G world gives a penalty on almost everything barring the HomeWorld. Thankfully "Artificial Gravity" fixes this and the sheer amount of population compensate in the meantime.

It's the custom race I've played the most in Moo2.

I like super productive races with tolerant as well, I experimented with Silicoids variants and had good results (friends where surprised, some afraid for a while) but I always preferred my Trilaran variant.

Working the Telepathic, Subterranean and Creative on the Elerian base (Kept other telepaths out of the game) so that when you take an enemy ship in combat you get to use it against them immediately, then later you crush them for resources. For some reason the computer would always attempt to kill their traitor ships before shooting at my own.

Was wild to have fleets of tiny frigates with marine assault shuttles crammed in, throw them at the incoming Anterians (sp?)... They would usually self destruct once taken but just one gives a MASSIVE tech boost!

One reason tele is so strong is because of the amount of clicks it takes to properly invade a colony. Really quite aggravating. It seems MoO4 is taking a similar approach.

This has been covered dozens of places elsewhere but creative/uncreative have the same boring problem. Both have no choice. One just has more consequences then the other. Between the 2, I slightly prefer uncreative because it is closer to MoO1's research style of not quite knowing what is available in a given game.

Edited by Moo4, 26 April 2016 - 07:31 AM.

I want a moddable Master of Orion 1.5 with focus on interface and pacing. Come discuss MoO 1.5 ideas HERE!

One reason tele is so strong is because of the amount of clicks it takes to properly invade a colony. Really quite aggravating. It seems MoO4 is taking a similar approach.

This has been covered dozens of places elsewhere but creative/uncreative have the same boring problem. Both have no choice. One just has more consequences then the other. Between the 2, I slightly prefer uncreative because it is closer to MoO1's research style of not quite knowing what is available in a given game.

I usually leave the Psilons in, so all the techs will be available in the game for stealing or trading.

Just like I leave the Sakkra, Sillicoid and Trillarian in, so I can capture higher pop planets for transporting over to my planets and increasing their max pop and for score.

Any race that has a better home world, like Mrrshan (Rich) or Alkari (Artifacts), stays in too.

I usually choose the Darlok face, because I don't like having techs stolen.

I rarely choose Cre. I favor higher prod races and Cre can slow down growth trying to build all those buildings with less production.

Race Picks for Solo games:

Uni, Aqua, Prod+2, Lg Rich HW. <-- Well rounded.

Uni, Tol, Prod+1, Lg HW. <-- Also, well rounded.

Uni, Aqua, Subt, Lg RHW. <--Very High pop.

Uni, Sub, Prod+2, RHW. <- Insane Production.

Uni, Tele, Spy+20, RHW. <--Best starting Spy Offense and Defense.

Tol, Prod+2, War.

Tol, Tele, Prod+1, LgHW.

Race Picks for friendly Multiplayer vs AIs only:

We usually set some guideline to make it tougher on us, like no Uni, or must take Uncreative and Feudal. That makes it fun.

In my resent one, I chose:

Tol, Sub, War. <-- very high pop, no pollution or their techs to worry about and lots of command points for ships.

Sometimes I go for something completely different.

Over a decade ago, I built the Vaadwaur from ST VGR Dragon's Teeth episode.

Subt, Stealthy, TransD, Feudal, Pop-50 and I forget what else.

The point was they were a race that was left in hibernation inside a planet for 900 years with some old small ships. So everyone else has better tech than them and there is only a few left. They used sub-space corridors to get around, hence the Stealthy TransD.

Was a fun, backward race to play.

I like the race picks in the ICE mod. It limits many of my main race choices. Uni is so expensive and Feudal is changed to make it worth choosing sometimes.

Creative is overrated. Subterranean is way OP though. Unification seems great, but you get no morale which is a penalty later. Repulsive is an easy choice since on impossible the computers are either repulsive or declare war on you without a second thought. Tolerant is inferior to subterranean. Aquatic just isn't that great. Low-g is a good alternative to repulsive if you really want a bit of diplomacy, but need to balance it with good industry and get gravity generators asap. Cybernetic can be cool sometimes. Research races are useless on impossible since the computers will just research faster than you anyway.

For my most OP race I would do something like Dictatorship, Subterranean, +100% pop growth, +2 industry, repulsive, -10 spying, large homeworld. Expand like crazy and roll over everyone. Can swap in telepathic for the industry of course to make invading even easier and then you can trade out the -10 spying for -10 ground combat and drop the large home world so that you get great spying too. For evolutionary mutation I'd then take cybernetic or warlord.

having just finished a game of MoO2, i played, research +2; creative, rich home, large home, feudal, repulsive. i turn my home world into a shipyard and my 1st couple of colonized planets as science stations.